Indivisible may lack the number-crunching aspects of Disgaea, but it embodies the same sense of earnest cheer. It won’t change your life, but it’s a pleasant romp, extremely pretty, and clearly made with a lot of love. All good stuff.

Is Vanquish the legendary success that you may have heard others describe it as? Nah, but it is a distinctive and solid good time with excellent movement and controls, and some delightfully tricksy setpiece battles. It feels damn good if you can break apart your shooter muscle memory and give yourself to its new ways, and I only wish that element of it could somehow be transplanted into a game with a less turgid personality. In the absence of that impossible possibility though – yep, play Vanquish.

The great experiment of the game was not so much the change of scenery, from history to science fiction, it was the decision to create a Civ-like game of expansion with some complexities and aspects of simulation borrowed from grand strategy. It’s in the simulation of a living galaxy that most of the complexity has been lost, but what has been gained is a precise and finely tuned machine. Less erratic and surprising than its ancestors, but much more elegant in its design.

Norsca is a brilliant last hurrah for Total War: Warhammer. It’s full of spectacle, monsters and thrilling wars, but where it really succeeds is in its campaign twists. Even with its final piece of DLC, Creative Assembly have been able to find more ways to make the grand campaign feel novel.

Flashpoint is fine expansion in terms of re-engineering BattleTech for extended play, then – far better than kicking us into another pit of mega-story or necessitating a new beginning. Long-term, I’d love to see more vibrancy from BattleTech – wilder planets, more colourful mechs and special attacks, grimier, punchier characters – but I suspect only the latter is compatible with this decades-old setting. Already though, a Flashpoint-augmented BattleTech is a significantly leaner and more adaptable machine than the lumbering brute of launch.

Let’s Build A Zoo has a deeply absorbing core that it builds from, and its more unique elements do enough for this game to stand on its own in a crowded genre. I’d recommend it to most people, even those who think it doesn't appeal to them. I’m normally terrible at these games, and end up throwing, like, fifty benches in a corner to fulfil some level criteria as quickly as possible, but even I love Let's Build A Zoo. Plus, just like any good tycoon game, I came out of it slightly ashamed of my behaviour.

Scarlet Nexus is a decent game of two parts, and both have weaknesses. The combat is swish, stylish and usually competent, but there are too many foibles that stop it from feeling like a truly great RPG. The story is vibrant YA dystopian fiction that goes JRPG-cuckoo (in a good, laugh-out-loud way) at the 15 hour mark. But the plot has more holes than a chain-link fence. Why do people on opposing sides of a civil war keep brain-texting each other to make small talk? Why does nobody bring up the very significant murder that occured earlier in the story?

Ultimately, I’ve only got so much patience for games where the victor is nearly always whoever doesn’t get spotted first. There’s a reason I haven’t played Plunkbat in months. If you’re into your realism though (or just good noises) Insurgency: Sandstorm is worth a shout.

But if you’ve an appetite for space dungeoneering in the company of one of gaming’s most iconic and influential villains, you’ll find the remake cleaves close to that original pitch. This is the product of a team which, to its credit, believed in the 1994 proposition of System Shock and trusted it would still stand up today, in spite of a 30-year shift towards smoothing the player’s path. The result has proved them right. It transpires that our creepy, manipulative robot mother knows best. [RPS Bestest Bests]

I especially like how the arcade game's soul has been transplanted not just in the art style but also the sound design. The character select screen yells each character's name with the tinny echo of arcade enthusiasm. "Marco!" - "Fio!" - "Echo!" It is so married to its arcade roots that even the currency you use to unlock post-campaign upgrades is called "credits". I've accrued a fistful of these digi-quarters. But you know what? I'm content with what I've played. Like a good Metal Slug game, I can happily walk away from it without seeing every last battlefield. I'm fully satisfied with the time and quarters I've already spent.

Lost In Random gets lots of things right, including that Dicey is now with us. But for an adventure game with such a wacky setting, it somehow doesn't get playful enough - or really even random enough - to elevate itself from a solid time to a rip-roaring one.

The occasionally dull new characters are mostly redeemed by their motivations and backstories in the end, but it’s hard to overlook Zero Time Dilemma’s visual flaws, which distract from the brilliance of the story. It’s by no means the best Zero Escape game, but it’s a fitting end to the trilogy’s story arc and – animation aside – it’s an excellent way to spend a few evenings.

Even when things got super easy, I still really enjoyed ordering my beautifully animated, lovingly customised Pope bots around these maps, dripping with architectural oddity and detail as they were, and watching them dismantle their foes with fuck-off power axes.But there’s just no bite to it, and it sadly ends up undermining itself as a result.

I was on a mission-critical infiltration to save someone's life with nice giant Bode, and I kept running off like "I know man, just, yeah, no it is, it's very important... yeah, no, one second, I saw something shiny over here and I'm not going to replay this level for ages". That doesn't feel very Jedi Knight. My repeated calls for every game to be at least 40% smaller go unheeded. Still, it's very fun rolling a Stormtrooper over your back and pinning him to the floor with a lasersword, isn't it?

As survival games go, however, I cannot call it "bad". Fair warning: there are weird glitches and choppiness (one bug saw me backdashing every time I exited the inventory screen). And I had to abandon playing on a controller because of the obnoxious virtual cursor in menus. But this wasn't enough to interrupt my bloodsucking. Awakening is dense with lore, and loyal to the childlike "sand is lava" flavours of Dune. I've enjoyed it for the strength of its world, and I admire how straightforwardly Funcom have adapted the memorable features of Herbert's fiction in exactly the most sensible way. If you walked out of the cinema after the Dune movies of recent years only to have your thoughts and dreams peppered with imagery from those films, then this is probably one of the best ways to visit and inhabit that distant desert. Just so long as you acknowledge, going in, that you'll be doing a lot more rock mining, water farming, and unexpected laughing than Timothee ever did.

It’s the Cronenbergian cyberpunk game I never knew I wanted, and it’s shot right into my top ten of the year so far. [RPS Recommended]

I like Songs of Conquest a lot. I may not quite love it, but it's colourful and rich in flavour and has more strategic depth than at first appears. Its main inspiration is clear, but it more than earns its own place in the sun.

I’m looking forward to the first opportunity I get to play with some humans in the physical world – and sad that their online counterparts aren’t sticking around.

The only reason I’m not giving it a Bestest Best badge is because it doesn’t do anything particularly new. It just does everything very well.

In terms of where this opening salvo of game leaves me, I’m interested to see how some of the characters progress and wary of others. The latter is because some of the jerks are so clearly going to take their douchebaggery too far and I don’t trust historical novels to give people their comeuppance! In terms of where I’m the most emotionally invested, though, I’d say it’s actually in the fate of the cathedral. They’re so complicated and prone to expense/disaster/overrunning/all of the above and I really want to know if this one is ever completed!

Simply put, Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy is a really good time. Not only that, but its linear story-telling and fast, nippy pacing feels intensely refreshing after the bloat of, say, Far Cry 6 and the sometimes frustrating openness of Deathloop. As it funnels you down a story filled with japes and jabs, I'm transported back to a happier, simpler time. If you're a Marvel fan, this feels unmissable. And even if you haven't got a clue what a Marvel is, it still delivers a very enjoyable romp through the stars.

This year has blessed us with games that radiate care, where you can tell that the people who made it really loved the process of making it. Wytchwood is like opening a hand-drawn pop-up book and finding a cheeky little hag inside, throwing snares at living pumpkins and yelling, "I'll chop you good!" at giggling little changeling mushrooms. And who wouldn't want to tick "chop annoying little mushroom good" off a to-do list? [RPS Bestest Bests]

Calvary and Four Last Things both wear their Monty Python influences very much on their sleeve, though, and this is appropriate. Because while Monty Python is funny, people tend to forget that the TV show in particular had about as many misses as it did hits, and only the hits made it into the clip compilations. Yes, yes, I will whip myself in penance later for saying so, please hold your comments. But by that metric, The Procession To Calvary is better than Monty Python, because it’s probably more consistent and, perhaps surprisingly for the content, less surreal. But your mileage, as they say, may vary.

To less wizened players, this might, understandably, all prove too much to make this remaster either enjoyable or worthwhile. But if you're willing to try and divine the inner workings of Dark Forces with a bit of spit and elbow grease, then there's certainly an interesting artefact to be found here - even if it's frequently wonky and obtuse in places. Despite the aimless wandering, I did have a good time with Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster, especially after only experiencing it through a demo disc all those years ago. But I'm also glad it's over now, and that I can go back to playing properly new games again. In that sense, Dark Forces Remaster is a complete success. It's reminded me of a fun memory from a long time ago, and having now revisited it and admired it from every angle, I'm happy to put it back in the carbon freezer, far, far away.

What we’ve got here is a solid stealth-action core with some lovely level design – both visually and in terms of the vast array of possible ways to accomplish your objectives – wrapped up in something equal parts drab and cynical. The gore, the Farmvilleish reward system: these are there as contrived hooks for the less discerning man-shooter enthusiast. It’s highly telling that the rest of the game would be barely effected if these were removed...I do like that core, though.

I’m greedy. I want a bigger, beefier, more flexible Mutant Year Zero. But that’s because the small, linear but smart, powerful and atmospheric Mutant Year Zero I got grabbed hold of me so completely. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Another Crab's Treasure may be one of the most cohesive Soulslikes out there, in how it's taken the hermit crab theme and actually turned it into a playful ARPG with interesting fights. And while it's challenging enough for Souls fans, I rate the plethora of options that let you turn it into a far easier time. This is, genuinely, a soulslike for everyone.

That Dragon, Cancer is an important game because it tries, but not because it succeeds.